Multisectoral prioritization of zoonotic diseases in Haryana (India) using one health approach

Zoonotic diseases have huge livestock and public health burden worldwide, including India. Prioritizing zoonotic diseases is one of the important tasks under 'One Health' as it facilitates effective policy making, proper allocation of resources and promotion of multisectoral collaboration. Although some efforts have been made to prioritizing zoonotic diseases at national level in India, it is important to identify priority diseases in regional settings due to wide variation in climate and demography of different states. Therefore, the present study aims to prioritize zoonotic diseases for the state of Haryana (India). One Health Zoonotic Disease Prioritization (OHZDP) tool was used in this study to prioritize zoonotic diseases. Based on literature review of the past 23 years (2000-2022) on prevalence, morbidity, and mortality of zoonotic diseases, twenty-three high-scoring zoonotic diseases in Haryana and neighboring states of India were initially shortlisted for prioritization. A three-day participatory workshop was conducted involving 17 experts representing the Health, Animal Husbandry and Wildlife departments of Haryana. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to rank the criteria, which were used to score the selected diseases using the decision tree analysis. The participants selected the following 7 criteria along with their relative weights to score the diseases: (1) Severity of disease in humans, (2) Severity of disease in animals, (3) Presence of disease in the region, (4) Transmission and outbreak potential, (5) Socio-economic impact, (6) Availability of interventions, and (7) Existing inter-sectoral collaboration for surveillance and reporting. The top scoring eight diseases selected as priority zoonotic diseases for Haryana were rabies, Japanese encephalitis, bovine tuberculosis, leptospirosis, avian influenza (H5N1), brucellosis, glanders and Influenza A (H1N1). Sensitivity analysis did not reveal any significant variation in prioritization results by varying criteria weights. This is the first systemic attempt to prioritize zoonotic diseases in the state and this will help in formulating effective monitoring, prevention, and control strategies for zoonotic diseases in the regional settings.